登陆注册
15483800000001

第1章 CHAPTER I(1)

The Leeds and Skipton railway runs along a deep valley of the Aire; a slow and sluggish stream, compared to the neighbouring river of Wharfe. Keighley station is on this line of railway, about a quarter of a mile from the town of the same name. The number of inhabitants and the importance of Keighley have been very greatly increased during the last twenty years, owing to the rapidly extended market for worsted manufactures, a branch of industry that mainly employs the factory population of this part of Yorkshire, which has Bradford for its centre and metropolis.

Keighley is in process of transformation from a populous, old-fashioned village, into a still more populous and flourishing town. It is evident to the stranger, that as the gable-ended houses, which obtrude themselves corner-wise on the widening street, fall vacant, they are pulled down to allow of greater space for traffic, and a more modern style of architecture. The quaint and narrow shop-windows of fifty years ago, are giving way to large panes and plate-glass. Nearly every dwelling seems devoted to some branch of commerce. In passing hastily through the town, one hardly perceives where the necessary lawyer and doctor can live, so little appearance is there of any dwellings of the professional middle-class, such as abound in our old cathedral towns. In fact, nothing can be more opposed than the state of society, the modes of thinking, the standards of reference on all points of morality, manners, and even politics and religion, in such a new manufacturing place as Keighley in the north, and any stately, sleepy, picturesque cathedral town in the south. Yet the aspect of Keighley promises well for future stateliness, if not picturesqueness. Grey stone abounds; and the rows of houses built of it have a kind of solid grandeur connected with their uniform and enduring lines. The frame-work of the doors, and the lintels of the windows, even in the smallest dwellings, are made of blocks of stone. There is no painted wood to require continual beautifying, or else present a shabby aspect; and the stone is kept scrupulously clean by the notable Yorkshire housewives. Such glimpses into the interior as a passer-by obtains, reveal a rough abundance of the means of living, and diligent and active habits in the women. But the voices of the people are hard, and their tones discordant, promising little of the musical taste that distinguishes the district, and which has already furnished a Carrodus to the musical world. The names over the shops (of which the one just given is a sample) seem strange even to an inhabitant of the neighbouring county, and have a peculiar smack and flavour of the place.

The town of Keighley never quite melts into country on the road to Haworth, although the houses become more sparse as the traveller journeys upwards to the grey round hills that seem to bound his journey in a westerly direction. First come some villas; just sufficiently retired from the road to show that they can scarcely belong to any one liable to be summoned in a hurry, at the call of suffering or danger, from his comfortable fire-side; the lawyer, the doctor, and the clergyman, live at hand, and hardly in the suburbs, with a screen of shrubs for concealment.

In a town one does not look for vivid colouring; what there may be of this is furnished by the wares in the shops, not by foliage or atmospheric effects; but in the country some brilliancy and vividness seems to be instinctively expected, and there is consequently a slight feeling of disappointment at the grey neutral tint of every object, near or far off, on the way from Keighley to Haworth. The distance is about four miles; and, as Ihave said, what with villas, great worsted factories, rows of workmen's houses, with here and there an old-fashioned farmhouse and outbuildings, it can hardly be called "country" any part of the way. For two miles the road passes over tolerably level ground, distant hills on the left, a "beck" flowing through meadows on the right, and furnishing water power, at certain points, to the factories built on its banks. The air is dim and lightless with the smoke from all these habitations and places of business. The soil in the valley (or "bottom," to use the local term) is rich; but, as the road begins to ascend, the vegetation becomes poorer; it does not flourish, it merely exists; and, instead of trees, there are only bushes and shrubs about the dwellings. Stone dykes are everywhere used in place of hedges;and what crops there are, on the patches of arable land, consist of pale, hungry-looking, grey green oats. Right before the traveller on this road rises Haworth village; he can see it for two miles before he arrives, for it is situated on the side of a pretty steep hill, with a back-ground of dun and purple moors, rising and sweeping away yet higher than the church, which is built at the very summit of the long narrow street. All round the horizon there is this same line of sinuous wave-like hills; the scoops into which they fall only revealing other hills beyond, of similar colour and shape, crowned with wild, bleak moors--grand, from the ideas of solitude and loneliness which they suggest, or oppressive from the feeling which they give of being pent-up by some monotonous and illimitable barrier, according to the mood of mind in which the spectator may be.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 蝎怒天下

    蝎怒天下

    他本是孤儿院的一个孤儿,在十六岁生日时,被天蝎光束传送到宇宙的另一端,为了回家,他将踏上不一样的旅途
  • 初恋纪事

    初恋纪事

    [花雨授权]都是她的错好不好?!呜——爱情和面包她都想要啦——本以为她这边的麻烦已经够多了,结果祸害更多!他要防止身边的害虫乱飞乱咬人,留心家里的“外人”窝里反!天啊!怎么谈个小恋爱也这么辛苦啊?
  • 最坑爹的修仙系统

    最坑爹的修仙系统

    废物?天降系统,灵魂融合!叶凡“系统你是不是在玩我?”
  • 八荒血域

    八荒血域

    龙泉镇走出了一个身世并不简单的孤儿,遇见一个一见钟情的女子,遇见一个断臂的师傅,然后便走向了一条不归路。什么天道圣兵,大荒镇魔碑,八荒血域,一个个秘密,一个个被封印的邪魔被层出不穷神秘势力解封,该死的,究竟需要多久?需要多长?化凡尘出天南,战青龙海,乱中州,灭西域,荡气回肠,到头来世界崩碎,众神仍然陨落在虚空……究竟是宿命还是轮回,八荒血域,跳跃性很大,慎重点击。
  • 小城岁月

    小城岁月

    我用最美的故事伴你成长,用最真诚的话语陪你成长。
  • A Footnote to History

    A Footnote to History

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 饕餮的学校

    饕餮的学校

    一中是全国高考状元基地。每年高三(一)班的班主任古老师,都会带着学生们进入独院进行魔鬼式的封闭式学习,每届都会有学生因不堪重负导致疯狂。新一届高考造就了一中的历史之最。正在学校准备给古老师开庆功宴的时候,古老师离奇失踪了……
  • 佛说杂譬喻经

    佛说杂譬喻经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 魔女仙妻:师父,你站住

    魔女仙妻:师父,你站住

    皇室内斗,他的父母惨遭迫害,他一出生便成了孤儿。二十五年后,他强势回归皇室,从此走上内斗皇室,外斗邪道的道路。十七岁的少女,对记忆中第一个给她关爱、给她温暖的人,一个屡次救她的人,那颗悄悄开放的心,怎能不慢慢靠近呢?有些情感,仿佛与生俱来,天生注定,避无可避,逃不可逃,内心再坚强,却抵不过最为无形无影的情字。情网恢恢,无边无际,一旦萌生,见与不见都会繁茂滋长。可是,这网,网得了自己,网得了他吗?她出身魔教,拼尽全力追随他的脚步,那份温暖,她此生难忘,那份清淡,只给她馨香!一生柔情,一世苦恋,却抵不过命运的戏弄……
  • 山里有仙人

    山里有仙人

    小楼住在天外村,村上住着一些户。人儿朝暮皆拜神,烟起缥缈白层层。江深湖水弄潮起,我的山里有仙人。